Many people who travel on long trips desire to take their pets along with them rather than make accommodations for the pets while they are away. In another application, hunters of certain kinds of animals will bring dogs along to assist in the hunt. In both cases, provisions must be made to provide food and water for the pet. As will be appreciated, carrying multiple bowls with a water supply and a food supply is inconvenient and may be difficult to use in a vehicle setting. Consequently, pet bowl manufacturers have designed portable pet bowls to address these situations.
In one example, a portable pet bowl is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,256, entitled “Combined Feeding and Watering Device for Pets, Having Integral Means for Carrying Water.” This patent shows a unitary pet dish made of a lightweight synthetic resin material. The pet dish includes a food receiving cavity at the top of the dish, and a water holding compartment and a corresponding water receiving recess for holding water that flows outwardly from the water holding compartment. The specification of this patent describes that a person may carry the pet dish when the pet dish is in a generally vertical orientation with the water receiving recess at the top of the pet dish. However, it seems evident that the cuplike shape of the wall defining the water receiving recess would require a cautious pet owner to also use another hand in carrying the pet dish. Otherwise, the pet dish would likely slide off a pet owner's fingers and fall from the pet owner's hand, due to the shape of the cuplike wall, particularly if a significant amount of water is held in the water holding compartment. In short, the cuplike wall is not a useful handle for carrying the pet dish.
Another pet dish currently available commercially is called “The Drinking Spot,” available from Kansas Outdoor Group LLC of Winfield, Kans. (see http://thedrinkingspot.com). The Drinking Spot is an outdoor gravity feed pet system. The system includes a housing defining an internal chamber and an open recess at the front of the internal chamber configured to receive water from the internal chamber. The system may be tipped onto a back wall and carried in a vertical orientation by a handle connected to the housing. This handle is separate from the housing and therefore may be broken away from the housing in a failure anode of the system. This failure mode is especially present in the Drinking Spot system because all versions disclosed hold over 2.5 to 5 gallons of water, which is a significant weight that may be hard to carry. Furthermore, the handle extends over the open recess and thus at least partially obstructs access to the open recess for large dogs who try to drink the water in the open recess.
Thus, while conventional pet bowls are generally successful for their intended purpose, there remains a need for an improved pet bowl that addresses these and other shortcomings in conventional pet bowl designs.